MLB.com's Carrie Muskat has been covering Major League Baseball since 1981 and is the author of "Banks to Sandberg to Grace: Five Decades of Love and Frustration with the Cubs." You can follow her on Twitter @CarrieMuskat. Here, she blogs about the Cubs.

9/23 Ramirez is day to day

Third baseman Aramis Ramirez was not in the Cubs’ lineup Friday, needing another day to nurse a strained right quad.

“He’s as day to day as I can get,” Mike Quade said Friday. “I waited a long time today [to post the lineup] but it was more wishful thinking on my part than anything else. He’ll see. He’ll start with whether he can give us a pinch-hit at-bat and go from there.”

Ramirez began the day ranked seventh in the National League in batting average at .306. He had to leave Tuesday’s game with the leg injury, which has been bothering him for some time.

There’s been no talk about shutting Ramirez down for the final two series.

“Let’s keep him working, get his treatment,” Quade said. “Maybe he can’t go in this series, but maybe he can give us a pinch-hit. He hasn’t indicated to me that he’s interested in shutting it down.”

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